For welfare rats like Andrew Grayson, there are only two ways out of the crime-ridden and filthy welfare tenements, where you're restricted to two thousand calories of badly flavored soy every day:You can hope to win the lottery and draw a ticket on a colony ship settling off-world, or you can join the service.With the colony lottery a pipe dream, Andrew chooses to enlist in the armed forces for a shot at real food, a retirement bonus, and maybe a ticket off Earth. But as he starts a career of supposed privilege, he soon learns that the good food and decent health care come at a steep price…and that the settled galaxy holds far greater dangers than military bureaucrats or the gangs that rule the slums.

    Chester IV, who has inherited his great-grandfather's lifework--a super computer that can bring any situation or time to life; and Roger Tyson, who is being pursued through time by a motorcycle-riding, rutabaga-like alien in a world where eras millions of years apart have been combined into an insane smorgasbord of eons.Contains:In the QueueThe Planet WreckersThe Body BuildersThe Devil You Don'tThe Exterminator (aka "A Bad Day for Vermin") The Big ShowGooberealityPrototaphThe Great Time Machine Hoax

    Whether it wanted to or not. When the Amplitur and their allies stumbled upon the races called the Weave, the Purpose seemed poised for a great leap forward. But the Weave's surprising unity also gave it the ability to fight the Amplitur and their cause. And fight it did, for thousands of years.Will Dulac was a New Orleans composer who thought the tiny reef off Belize would be the perfect spot to drop anchor and finish his latest symphony in solitude. What he found instead was a group of alien visitors, a scouting party for the Weave, looking for allies among what they believed to be a uniquely warlike race, Humans.Will tried to convince the aliens that Man was fundamentally peaceful, for he understood that Human involvement would destroy the race. But all too soon, it didn't matter. The Amplitur had discovered Earth...

    Humanity's only chance rests with an unusual pair of allies: a young Jao prince, newly arrived to Terra to assume his duties, and a young human woman brought up amongst the Jao occupiers.But both are under pressure from the opposing forces--a cruel Jao viceroy on one side, determined to drown all opposition in blood; a reckless human resistance on the other, perfectly prepared to shed it. Added to the mix is the fact that only by adopting some portions of human technology and using human sepoy troops can the haughty Jao hope to defeat the oncoming Ekhat attack--and then only by fighting the battle within the Sun itself.

    The military sci-fi classic in a striking new packageFelix is an Earth soldier, encased in special body armor designed to withstand Earth's most implacable enemy-a bioengineered, insectoid alien horde. But Felix is also equipped with internal mechanisms that enable him, and his fellow soldiers, to survive battle situations that would destroy a man's mind.This is a remarkable novel of the horror, the courage, and the aftermath of combat--and how the strength of the human spirit can be the greatest armor of all.

    Now the creatures known as humans are near this momentous turning point.But an armed threat is approaching from deepest space, determined to prevent humankind from crossing over that boundary—by total annihilation if necessary.To the Sh'daar, the driving technologies of transcendent change are anathema and must be obliterated from the universe—along with those who would employ them. As their great warships destroy everything in their path en route to the Sol system, the human Confederation government falls into dangerous disarray.There is but one hope, and it rests with a rogue Navy Admiral, commander of the kilometer-long star carrier America, as he leads his courageous fighters deep into enemy space towards humankind's greatest conflict—and quite possibly its last.

    Contains: The Borders of InfinityBrothers in Arms Mirror DanceMiles Naismith--in the person of his two alter-egos Admiral Naismith and Lieutenant Lord Vorkosigan--embarks on a perilous series of adventures, from the liberation of Barrayaran allies from a Cetagandan POW camp to the rescue of clone children scheduled to be murdered for their bodies.

    For a thousand years, the Sabbat Worlds have been lost to the Imperium, claimed by the dread powers of Chaos. Now, a mighty crusade seeks to return the sector to Imperial rule. And at the forefront of that crusade are Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt and the Tanith First and Only – better known as Gaunt’s Ghosts. Trapped in the grinding trench warfare of Fortis Binary, the Ghosts find themselves drawn into a conspiracy to assassinate the crusade’s leader, Warmaster Macaroth. With enemies all around them and no one to trust, Gaunt and his men must find a way to save the warmaster and prevent the Sabbat Worlds Crusade from falling into anarchy – even if it means waging war on their supposed allies.Read by Toby Longworth.

    But as the Skins invade bucolic Thallspring, Z-B's strategy is about to go awry, all because of: Sgt. Lawrence Newton, a dreamer whose twenty years as a Skin have destroyed his hopes and desires; Denise Ebourn, a school teacher and resistance leader whose guerrilla tactics rival those of Che Guevara and George Washington and Simon Roderick, the director who serves Z-B with a dedication that not even he himself can understand. Grimly determined to steal, or protect, a mysterious treasure, the three players engage in a private war that will explode into unimaginable quests for personal grace...or galactic domination

    Maybe my last.They made their presence on Earth known thirteen years ago.Providing technology and scientific insights far beyond what mankind was capable of. They became indispensable advisors and promised even more gifts that we just couldn't pass up. We called them Gurus.It took them a while to drop the other shoe. You can see why, looking back.It was a very big shoe, completely slathered in crap.They had been hounded by mortal enemies from sun to sun, planet to planet, and were now stretched thin -- and they needed our help.And so our first bill came due. Skyrines like me were volunteered to pay the price. As always.These enemies were already inside our solar system and were moving to establish a beachhead, but not on Earth.On Mars.

    -Royal Navy Motto Seventy years ago, the interstellar supercarrier Ark Royal was the pride of the Royal Navy. But now, her weapons are outdated and her solid-state armour nothing more than a burden on her colossal hull. She floats in permanent orbit near Earth, a dumping ground for the officers and crew the Royal Navy wishes to keep out of the public eye. But when a deadly alien threat appears, the modern starships built by humanity are no match for the powerful alien weapons. Ark Royal and her mismatched crew must go on the offensive, buying time with their lives. And yet, with a drunkard for a Captain, an over-ambitious first officer and a crew composed of reservists and the dregs of the service, do they have even the faintest hope of surviving......and returning to an Earth which may no longer be there?

    Assigned the task of blazing man's first trail into that great unknown, Captain Eric Weston and the crew of the NAC Odyssey launch on a mission destined to make history.Past the bounds of comfort, they encounter horrors and wonders beyond their imagining, with people and monsters beyond reckoning.Odyssey One is the first voyage of the NAC Odyssey and its crew, and the beginnings of a Military Science Fiction Epic that combines both old school space opera, and modern storytelling in one great, exhilarating adventure.Odyssey One is a 150,000 word novel.

    Mistakes might be made, but they are never acknowledged, especially when billions of embezzled dollars earned from illegal weapons sales are at stake. But where does one run when all Earth and the planets are under the aegis of one government?

    Many have native microbes dangerous to the human immigrants. Others have diseases brought to them accidentally -- or on purpose -- by visiting ships. When millions of lives are threatened, it's a job for the Interstellar Medical Service, and a Med Ship is sent to solve the problem. Calhoun is the best the Med Service has, and hard experience has taught him that often the major obstacle to curing the sick is... the sick. And removing that kind of obstacle may take very strong medicine.This book is a compilation of four books released in the 1960's: The Mutant Weapon, Doctor to the Stars, S.O.S. from Three Worlds and This World is Taboo.3 • Med Ship Man • (1963)57 • Plague on Kryder II • (1964)121 • The Mutant Weapon • (1959)231 • Ribbon in the Sky • (1957)285 • Tallien Three (aka The Hate Disease) • (1963)351 • Quarantine World • (1966)425 • The Grandfathers' War • (1957)505 • Pariah Planet (aka This World is Taboo) • (1961)632 • Editors' Afterword by Eric Flint and Guy Gordon

    Three generations of its warriors have gone off to war, held the line against the larger, more powerful enemy. Now the fourth conflict is imminent, and the Confederation’s navy is on alert, positioned behind the frontier, waiting for the attack it knows is coming. The battleship Dauntless has spent the past ten months patrolling the border, deployed far forward of the main fleet, a forlorn hope, an advance guard positioned to give the warning of invasion. But no attack has come. Her crew is exhausted, and the aging battleship needs maintenance. With the fleet mobilized and the forward bases overloaded beyond capacity, she is sent clear across the Confederation, to a planet along the quiet and peaceful far frontier. Her crew is looking forward to a rest, and Dauntless herself is scheduled for a long-overdue maintenance session. But the quiet frontier isn’t what it seems…and when a distress call is received from one of the mining colonies on the edge of Confederation space, it falls to Captain Tyler Barron to take Dauntless forward, to find out what is happening, and to put a stop to it. Barron and his crew have their ship—and each other—but they can expect no other help. Suspicion is strong that Union deceit is at play, that the attack is some sort of diversion, intended to draw Confederation forces from the disputed border. The orders are clear. No ships will be transferred from the prospective battle line. Stopping whatever is happening on the rim is Barron’s responsibility, and his alone. Barron is the grandson of the Confederation’s great hero, the father of the modern navy. His family name has always carried privilege with it, and crushing responsibility. And now he must prove that he has inherited more from his famous grandfather than name and privilege. He must face the enemy, and win the victory…before the Confederation is caught between two enemies and destroyed. Blood on the Stars Reading Order Book 1: Duel in the Dark Book 2: Call to Arms (January 2017, Available now for preorder)